309 Best Sights in USA

Between the zoo and the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park lies the Queens Museum. Don't miss the astonishing Panorama of the City of New York, a nearly 900,000-building model of NYC made for the 1964 World's Fair, and the world's largest scale model. There are also rotating exhibitions of contemporary art, a massive map of the NYC water supply system, a permanent collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany stained glass, and an ongoing a mural display by Caroline Kent. Parking is free but limited.

The front yard of this home, built by Camel cigarette founder R. J. Reynolds and his wife, Katharine Smith Reynolds, seems to extend to the horizon. It's the first of many moments of grandeur at the 1917 dwelling that's now an art museum filled with paintings, prints, and sculptures by Thomas Eakins, Frederic Church, and Georgia O'Keeffe. There's also a costume collection, as well as clothing and toys used by the Reynolds children. The home is adjacent to the 134-acre Reynolda Gardens that include flower fields, wooded trails, and a nursery. Next door is Reynolda Village, a collection of shops and restaurants that fill the estate's original outer buildings.

Hearst Castle architect Julia Morgan designed this museum that houses a significant collection of works by Robert Williams, Takashi Murakami, Shag, Käthe Kollwitz, James Gurney, Marc Chagall, Millard Sheets, Shepard Fairey, Corita Kent, and Don O’Neill. In 2022, the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture joined the museum to showcase Chicano art in the form of paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculptures by artists including Patssi Valdez, Sandy Rodriguez, Carlos Almaraz, Frank Romero, and Gilbert “Magú” Luján.

This 1863 three-floor town house and an adjoining building are filled with Persian rugs and 18th-century British, French, and American antiques (plus an entire living room that once belonged to poet Marianne Moore), but the real treasures are the artworks, books, and manuscripts here. Amassed by Philadelphia collectors Philip H. and A. S. W. Rosenbach, the collection includes paintings by Canaletto, Sully, and Lawrence; drawings by Daumier, Fragonard, and Blake; book illustrations ranging from medieval illuminations to the works of Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are; the only known copy of the first issue of Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack; and the library's most famous treasure, the original manuscript of James Joyce's Ulysses. The Rosenbach celebrates "Bloomsday" on June 16 with readings from Ulysses by notable Philadelphians. The library has more than 130,000 manuscripts and 30,000 rare books.

Housed in a sleek, contemporary building, SJIMA presents rotating art shows and exhibits with an emphasis on island and Northwest artists, including the highly touted Artists' Registry Show in winter, which features works by nearly 100 San Juan Islands artists.

The permanent collection here focuses on the artistic legacy of the Central Coast. Temporary exhibits include traditional and cutting-edge arts and crafts by Central Coast, national, and international artists.

Shimmering glass was manufactured here nearly two centuries ago, and the Sandwich Glass Museum shows you what the factory looked like in its heyday. There's an "ingredient room" showcasing a wide spectrum of glass colors, along with the minerals added to the sand to obtain them, and an outstanding collection of blown and pressed glass in many shapes and hues. Large lamps, vases, and pitchers are impressive, as are the hundreds of candlesticks on display. There are glassblowing demonstrations daily on the hour from 10 to 4. The extensive gift shop sells some handsome reproductions, including many made by local and national artisans. The glass museum is part of the Sandwich Historical Society.

The highlights of this museum's permanent collection include ancient sculpture, Asian art, impressionist paintings, contemporary art, photography, and American works in several mediums.

Once the private collection of Savannah businessman Don Cole, this assemblage of more than a thousand sculptures, artifacts, tribal costumes, carved masks, pottery, and other sacred objects from West and Central Africa is now on display for the general public in a beautifully restored yellow mansion. The museum has works and artifacts from more than 180 cultures and also hosts workshops and lectures relating to African history.

On the beautifully landscaped campus of Southern Oregon University, this museum includes a light-filled gallery devoted to special exhibits by Oregon, West Coast, and international artists. The permanent collection has grown considerably over the years, and includes pre-Columbian ceramics and works by such notables as Alexander Calder, George Inness, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. Hallways and galleries throughout the rest of the 66,000-square-foot complex display many works by students and faculty.  Steps from the museum, the university's Hannon Library is a gorgeous building with a dramatic four-story atrium, plenty of comfy seating, and quite a few notable artworks as well.

SMoCA, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art is often referred to as a "museum without walls." There's a good museum store here for unusual jewelry and stationery, posters, and art books. New installations are planned every few months, with an emphasis on contemporary art, architecture, and design.

The mission of this Jewish cultural institution in the beautiful Santa Monica Mountains is to explore the connections "between 4,000 years of Jewish heritage and the vitality of American democratic ideals." The extraordinary museum, featuring exhibits like Visions and Values: Jewish Life from Antiquity to America, has a massive collection of Judaica—the third largest in the world. A big family draw is the Noah's Ark interactive exhibition, where children are invited to re-create the famous tale using their own imagination.

If you want to see masterpieces but don't want to spend a long day wandering around one of the major art museums, the Smart, which turned 50 in 2024, may be just your speed. Its diverse exhibition program features art from around the globe.

A floor of galleries with natural light, an enclosed courtyard, and artist-designed restrooms and benches make up this museum, whose permanent collection's highlights include pivotal paintings by Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Georgia O'Keeffe, Auguste Rodin, and Georges Seurat. More recent acquisitions include African, Asian, and Islamic art.

From Childe Hassam's The South Ledges, Appledore to Nelson Shanks's The Four Justices, the Smithsonian American Art Museum features one of the world's largest collections of American art that spans more than four centuries. Over the past few decades, the museum has broadened its collection to include modern and contemporary art, too. Among the artists represented are Benny Andrews, José Campechi, Robert Indiana, Roy Lichtenstein, Isamu Noguchi, Robert Rauschenberg, Mickalene Thomas, and Charlie Willeto. The museum shares a National Historic Landmark building with the National Portrait Gallery.

On the first floor, you'll discover an enormous tinfoil altarpiece by James Hampton and more than 60 sculptures and paintings by Emery Blagdon that represent his thought-provoking and constantly changing Healing Machine. You can also experience American works from the 1930s, many created as part of New Deal programs. Highlights here include Marvin Beerbohm's Automotive Industry, Lily Furedi's Subway, and Edward Hopper's Ryder's House. Also on the first floor is the Direct Carving exhibit, which showcases artists who work directly on a piece of stone or wood.

Art from the Colonial period to the dawn of modernism is displayed throughout the galleries on the second floor. Discover masterpieces by Mary Cassatt, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Thomas Moran, Harriett Whitney Frishmuth, George Catlin, Albert Bierstadt, Winslow Homer, and John Singer Sargent, to name just a few.

The museum's third floor features modern and contemporary paintings and sculpture and the Watch This! gallery, where you can see a selection of works from the museum's media art and film collection. Highlights include Nam June Paik's billboard-size piece with 215 monitors showing video images from the Seoul Olympics, Korean folk rituals, and modern dance.

At any given time, many of the museum's holdings are in storage, but you can view more than 3,000 artworks in its Luce Foundation Center, a visible storage space on the third and fourth floors, where visitors can also watch the museum's conservators at work. Free docent-led tours of the museum are available every day at 12:30 and 2.

This unique underground building houses stunning galleries, a library, photographic archives, and educational facilities dedicated to collecting, conserving, and studying Africa's arts and culture from different perspectives. The rotating exhibits illuminate African visual arts, including sculpture, textiles, photography, archaeology, and modern art. Currents: Water in African Art showcases the power of art through pieces like intricately carved wooden masks and figures paying tribute to water spirits and deities. The museum's educational programs for children and adults include films with contemporary perspectives on African life, storytelling programs, and festivals, including Community Day. The hands-on workshops, such as traditional basket weaving, bring Africa's oral and cultural traditions to life. Workshops and demonstrations by African and African American artists offer a chance to meet and talk to practicing artists.

The always-changing exhibits at this tucked-away museum near the Wake Forest campus showcase artwork—including large-format sculpture displays—by nationally and internationally known artists. The attached historic Hanes House has been renovated with contemporary designer furnishings comfortable for attending a Fireside Chat, reading an art magazine, or just enjoying the view of the grounds outside.

Set in a striking modern building that opened in 2016 and was designed to resemble the region's canyons and rock formations, this excellent regional art museum with a peaceful sculpture garden is part of Southern Utah University's cultural compound, along with the Utah Shakespeare Festival theaters. The galleries feature selections from the museum's permanent collection of some 2,000 works—including pieces by Renoir, Dalí, Picasso, and Thomas Hart Benton—along with rotating shows that shine a light on emerging regional artists as well as students and faculty.

Springville, 10 miles south of Provo on I–15 or U.S. 89, is known for its support of the arts, and its museum is a must-stop for fine-arts fans. Built in 1937 to accommodate works by John Hafen and Cyrus Dallin, the museum now features mostly Utah artists, among them Gary Lee Price, Richard Van Wagoner, and James T. Harwood. It also has a collection of Soviet working-class impressionism and a sculpture garden with rotating exhibits.

The downtown centerpiece of St. George's growing art scene occupies an attractively reimagined former sugar-beet warehouse. The permanent collection celebrates the works of mostly regionally based potters, photographers, and painters, many of them depicting the region's spectacular landscapes. Rotating exhibits highlight local history and lore and showcase emerging contemporary talents. There's also a Family Discovery Center, with materials for kids to create their own works.

In 1968, the Studio Museum in Harlem opened to celebrate artists of African descent. In 2018, the museum closed for a $300 million renovation and expansion project, and is slated to finally reopen in fall 2025 after a seven-year hiatus. The reopening will feature work from Tom Lloyd, an activist who was a focal point of the institution's opening 56 years ago. There will be works of art dating back to the early 1800s, showcasing more than 200 years of work by Black creatives, such as Houston E. Conwill, David Hammons, and Glenn Ligon.

Housed in an exquisitely designed building—overlooking Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park, the towering minarets of the University of Tampa, and the Hillsborough River—this museum is emblematic of the city's efforts to revitalize its Downtown riverfront. The main, 66,000-square-foot gallery space displays an impressive permanent collection of 20th- and 21st-century sculpture as well as Greek and Roman antiquities. Five additional galleries host traveling exhibits ranging from the classics to some of the most prominent artists working today. At night, the building's exterior comes alive with colorful LED lights, a sight best viewed from the Curtis Hixon park.

Though somewhat out of place architecturally, this small and modern structure, made of travertine imported from Italy, is a jewel box. The free museum houses works by major European and American artists as well as a superb collection of Russian icons.

This quirky and utterly fascinating homage to folk art, found art, and kitsch contains a world of miniature carved-wood characters. Its late founder, Ross Ward, spent more than 40 years carving and collecting the hundreds of figures that populate this cheerfully bizarre museum, including an animated miniature Western village, a Boot Hill cemetery, and a 1940s circus exhibit. Ragtime piano music, a 40-foot sailboat, and a life-size general store are other highlights. The walls surrounding this 22-room museum have been fashioned out of more than 50,000 glass bottles pressed into cement. As you might expect, the gift shop offers plenty of fun oddities.

The museum consists of a modern building housing superb collections of Latin American Art and Western Art, and five adjacent historic buildings on Main Avenue that are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. You can tour four of the historic houses, La Casa Cordova, the Stevens Home, the J. Knox Corbett House, and the Edward Nye Fish House, though each have different hours. The fifth, the Romero House, believed to incorporate a section of the presidio wall, is now used for the museum's ceramics education program. Visitors enter through the main museum on Alameda Street. The Latin American Art wing includes ancient Andean and Incan sculpture, Spanish Colonial art, and contemporary Latin works. The Art of the American West collection showcases Western and indigenous Southwestern art; rotating exhibits include Asian, European, and Modern pieces from the permanent collection.

La Casa Cordova, one of the oldest buildings in Tucson and one of the best local examples of a Sonoran row house has a Spanish-style design adapted to adobe construction. The oldest section of La Casa Cordova, constructed around 1848, is only open November to January to display El Nacimiento, the largest nativity scene in the Southwest.

The Stevens Home was where the wealthy politician and cattle rancher Hiram Stevens and his wife, Petra Santa Cruz, entertained many of Tucson's leaders during the 1800s. A drought brought the Stevens's cattle ranching to a halt in 1893, and Stevens killed himself in despair after unsuccessfully attempting to shoot his wife (the bullet was deflected by the comb she wore in her hair). The 1865 house was restored in 1980 and now houses Café à la C'Art, a delightful restaurant.

The J. Knox Corbett House was built in 1906–07 and occupied by members of the Corbett family until 1963. J. Knox Corbett was a successful businessman, postmaster, and mayor of Tucson, and his wife, Elizabeth Hughes Corbett, an accomplished musician and daughter of Tucson pioneer Sam Hughes. The two-story, Mission Revival–style residence has been furnished with Arts and Crafts pieces. It's open only on weekends.

The Edward Nye Fish House, an 1868 adobe that belonged to an early merchant, entrepreneur, and politician and his wife, is notable for its 15-foot beamed ceilings and saguaro cactus–rib supports.

Admission to the museum and all four homes is free on the second Sunday and the first Thursday evening of every month, and there are free docent tours daily.

Modern and contemporary art fans with an interest in the artistic achievements of the Ukrainian diaspora head to this small museum at the far western edge of the Ukrainian Village. One of its two galleries is dedicated to changing exhibitions; the other features the museum's permanent collection of mixed media, sculpture, and painting from the 1950s to the present. Some of the most interesting works are kinetic steel-wire sculptures by Konstantin Milonadis, the constructed reliefs of Ron Kostyniuk, and painted wood structures by Mychajlo Urban. 

This shady enclave adjacent to Zilker Park is where famed sculptor Charles Umlauf lived and worked. Umlauf, who taught at the University of Texas' art department from 1941 to 1981, created an incredibly diverse body of work that ranged in style from realistic to abstract, using such materials as marble, bronze, wood, and terra-cotta. His subjects were equally wide-ranging, from religious figures and nudes to whimsical animals and families. Visitors can admire his works installed throughout the verdant beauty of the house's surrounding gardens, which also hosts special events and community happenings, like food festivals, live music, outdoor yoga classes, and free family days, in addition to a coveted register of weddings.

This small campus museum houses a collection of more than 6,000 artworks, mainly European and American paintings from the Renaissance through modern day, including works by Georgia O'Keeffe and Jackson Pollock. A highlight is the Kress Collection's retablo from Ciudad Rodrigo: 26 panels of an altarpiece made in the 1490s by Fernando Gallego.

Among the artworks displayed in the campus art museum are paintings, sculpture, photography, and folk art from America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Spanning 74,000 square feet and offering more than 20 galleries, this well-regarded art museum on the University of Utah campus contains a vast permanent collection of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman relics, Italian Renaissance and other European paintings, and Chinese ceramics and scrolls. Special exhibits are mounted regularly, and a café and a sculpture court offer further diversions.